Carson Shows His True Colors

by Kung Fu Zu3/11/16
Dr. Ben Carson has come out and endorsed Donald Trump. I had long suspected the good Dr. was something of a phony and unserious candidate, but this action confirms it.

A type of syrupy sanctimony has been Carson’s stock and trade. During the debates, he generally said nothing of import, but had the look one sees in old religious paintings of saints and martyrs. Head tilted, eyes on heaven with a slightly pained yet hopeful look. Only the halo was missing. Like such paintings, Carson’s portrait was staged for effect, but the medieval painters and their subjects had the advantage of sincerity.

The so-called “moral” man, who was “shocked, I say shocked” at the “dishonesty” of the candidate whose team re-tweeted a piece from CNN, has now chosen to back the other candidate who called him a pedophile and psychopath.

Admittedly, I never bought into the pious aura which seemed to surround Carson. Because of this, his most recent move does not surprise me in the least. He brought nothing of substance to the debates; said nothing which moved the national discussion forward. He was a complete fraud. Ben Carson was, and still is, simply looking out for Ben Carson, his fake demeanor, notwithstanding.

Can anyone say, “Surgeon General”?

Kung Fu Zu is a conservative prognosticator who has traveled widely and lived outside the United States. • (1163 views)

34 Responses to Carson Shows His True Colors

The very first words out of my mouth when I heard Rush announced the endorsement was: Carson shows himself to be a deeply unserious man with this endorsement of Trump.

And, good grief, don’t you Trump people look silly now. Ted Cruz is this horrible person because someone on his staff re-tweeted something that they heard on the news. But calling the good Dr. Carson a pedophile doesn’t rate.

And for Carson to be able to kiss and make up shows clearly that he’s made a deal with Trump — or the man is not competent enough to know when he’s been insulted.

Dr. Carson represented the nice guy with strong family values who was going to bring some non-political homespun wisdom to the political process that is too often dominated by programmed robots such as Rubio. But as Mr. Kung himself reminded me, in so many of his debates he simply said “You can look up further details on my web site.” His views were a melange of half-baked ignorance, at best, and he didn’t know when to get out of the race…or didn’t care too because it apparently was a pretty good impromptu book tour.

I’d still want the guy to operate on me if needed. But Dr. Carson is a perfect example of the low-information voter. He’s expert in his field and yet can’t seem to put two words together in a coherent and persuasive way about what’s wrong with this country and how to fix it. With the backdrop of the vulgar Trump, he ought to have stood out as a breath of fresh air. But he just puttered on in those debates like an enfeebled old man.

I’m a bit disappointed, but I’d already taken his measure from his determination to stay in even after South Carolina revealed how hopeless his campaign was. Undoubtedly he did so hoping to keep what voters he had from going to Cruz. Why the latter’s campaign retweeting a CNN report that might in theory have cost Carson a few votes (and it never occurs to him that no one has identified any actual switched votes) was more serious than Trump’s smears (and the violent bullying that seems much more common at his rallies than elsewhere, and which Trump has iimplicitly ncited and never condemned) is an interesting question.

Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Trump too. Meanwhile, National Review endorsed Cruz. What I’m unsure about is whether some or all of these endorsements indicate true support or subterfuge with the objective to keep Trump from reaching first ballot critical mass to secure the nomination. It seems the only chance the eGOP has to end up with the nominee be someone other than Trump or Cruz is a brokered convention. Toward that end they may want Cruz to keep Trump from getting enough 1st ballot delegates to win.

As we know all too well the Left’s playbook is the ends justifies the means and that takes on every form of cheating and dastardly tricks, and that the eGOP has the same lack of integrity. Therefore unless Trump has the nomination secured before the convention it will be a no holds barred behind the scenes brawl and if I were a betting man I would put my money on the dastardly bastards to get their way.

I suspect Schlafly made her decision for much the same reason Coulter has endorsed Trump. I would be willing to believe that NR really favors Cruz among those remaining. But it depends on the writer, I guess. Some of them seem to be strongly pro-Establishment.

Given the National Review’s anti-Trump mania, I am not surprised they have now come round to endorsing Cruz. They had no other choice.

I can understand Schlafly’s endorsement of Trump. Immigration is the biiiigggggg issue for me. The GOPe has consistently lied to the base about this issue so we know they will only keep the illegal flood going. At least with Trump there is a small possibility he will do what he says he promises. If he doesn’t, we are no worse off than we are now, and if he does “Hallelujah”.

I’m a complete pessimist, Mr. Kung. I don’t expect Trump to do a darn thing regarding illegal aliens. And a president’s attention is often a divided one. When you come into office, you are subject to be overtaken by events. It wouldn’t be hard for immigration to be put on the back burner and hear such things as “I never knew the situation in so-and-so was so serious. I have to deal with that now.”

Maybe I’ve been watching too much “Yes, Minister.” But I don’t think you can trust Trump as far as you can throw him. And even if Cruz is elected president, he doesn’t have dictatorial powers. There’s only so much he can do. What you want in a president is one well versed in Americanism, who is of sound character, and is a bold leader on issues of importance. Cruz has the first two and is a little weak on the 3rd. Trump is missing the first two and it is assumed that his braggadocio is evidence for the third.

Certainly the piety of Carson is blown apart. If a man publicly compares you to a pedophile, there’s something wrong with you if you can’t harbor a decent grudge.

Good analysis, KFZ. I overestimated Carson somewhat – although I considered him under-prepared, I at least credited him with being a Conservative, a theory that is no longer tenable. That means, for all the jackasses complaining about Trump because “we had this great field of other candidates” we in fact had exactly one Conservative (Cruz) out of the 17! So while Rubio is the E-man pretending to be a Conservative, it appears Carson was the self-promoter pretending to be a Conservative.

If Cruz becomes President, he should not appoint Carson to anything after this.

So while Rubio is the E-man pretending to be a Conservative, it appears Carson was the self-promoter pretending to be a Conservative.

I think Carson is a good, god-fearing man, as they say. I don’t want to trash him as the Trumpbots have trashed Cruz. But it is clear he wasn’t quite yet ready for prime time. We were hoping to get an Allan West perhaps with a little more Will Rogers (or even Fred Rogers) folksy, common-man appeal…a man so good and qualified, he had no need to put on airs.

Instead we got yet another person who has been asleep at the cultural wheel, perhaps learning (as Trump has, from the Left) a few cultural slogans but otherwise not even a basic understanding of what this country is about, how it works, and how and why it needs conservative ideas to fix it. Only Ted Cruz has begun to explain the problems from a conservative perspective.

Certainly we’ve seen our share of people pretending to be conservative. But are they pretending or just low-information conservatives? It’s hard to tell. And you know the kind. You see them on Facebook. They’re big boosters of, say, the Second Amendment, and might even be against abortion, but otherwise buy much of the Cultural Marxist agenda without much of a thought. They’ve just absorbed it from the culture. And because it’s what they know, it must be right.

And that is what I think explains Carson. He certainly thinks of himself as an intelligent and decent person, which I believe he is. But he doesn’t seem even remotely conversant on Americanism. And that is something that is becoming common. It is very likely why Trump is leading over Cruz.

That really is the dividing line — the Mason-Dixon line of GOP politics. You have a host of people who may be legitimately pissed off. But they’ve no context for the solution to the problems. All they know is at the level of sound bytes. That is the campaign Trump (and not only Trump) are running. It’s bereft of intellectual content. There is no structure. There is no guiding influence other than a blender of ideas he’s gained from the culture by rough and random osmosis.

This is not Ronald Reagan. As Rush said, the closest we may get to another Ronald Reagan in our lifetime is Ted Cruz. And yet, somewhat like Jesus 2000 years ago, the guy with a better plan — they guy who was truly a nice guy — was hated by the mob. We’ve degenerated so far as a culture, we can’t tell the demagogues from the true statesmen.

As I say, they are all politicians including Carson. Many people did not seem to realize this.

I don’t have a problem with self-promoting politicians, per se. That is what they all do. What I have a problem with is phonies who go around claiming they are different in a somewhat sanctimonious way, when they are in truth just more devious. I have even more problems with such people when they claim to be conservatives, yet do not stand up for conservative policies. Leftists generally do devious better than conservatives.

Perhaps I am overly cynical, but it was pretty clear to me from the beginning that Carson was not being pushed along by a spontaneous grass-roots movement. He was the one he was waiting for. The man has been something of a self-promoter for some time. Writing an auto-biography in one’s early 40’s does not strike me as particularly reticent or humble.

Why the man ever felt he was qualified to be the president of the USA is beyond me. The talents and experiences of a surgeon do not seem to be much of a fit for those required to be president.

As far as I could see, he basically had no program other than getting his face in front of the crowd. Yes, I know he told us to go to his website and read this or that position paper. But that simply does not cut the mustard for someone running for the presidency. I really have come to the conclusion that he was never actually running for the presidency, rather he was running to promote, among other things, his books, and hoping for some position in government should the Republicans win.

I saw almost every debate he was in and I was never quite sure what he stood for. I certainly never got the impression he was conservative.

I had to LOL at this article on Carson which started out with promise and then just stopped. No conclusions drawn. Yikes. So let’s give thanks to Mr. Kung for, rightly or wrongly, actually stating an opinion and offering possible motivations for this all.

And it’s not just that he didn’t endorse “my guy” that I’m taking a second look at Carson. Joining forces with someone who verbally abused him the way he did enters the realm of creepy…unless, of course, this is merely quid pro quo stuff. But how is one left to respect Ben Carson? What did he bring to this?

But that’s true about most of these candidates. The debate format should be scrapped forever. If you had to say what Chris Christie stood for, what would it be? I have no idea. The same for most of these guys. Certainly Cruz had his moments at articulating some idea. That’s good. But these debates were otherwise a food fight and beneath the dignity of the office they are campaigning for.

It makes the days of handing out free beer in order to get votes seem completely harmless. The guy running the RNC is a complete ass-wipe. The obvious thing to do — if one actually cares for the process — would be mix in a few townhall-style Q&A sessions with the public (the real public, not plants) along with some debates moderated by people other than journalistic tramps such as Megyn Kelly. Debates moderated by Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, and Lars Larson would be a start.

So let’s give thanks to Mr. Kung for, rightly or wrongly, actually stating an opinion and offering possible motivations for this all

I will accept such thanks with humility.

I am pretty sure you know that one of the objects of my statements is to help encourage debate.

I may or may not be correct in my conclusions about things, but at least I try to back them up with observations I have made. I just can’t stand it when people accuse someone of this or that without trying to back it up with something.

I will admit my default position on most politicians, and others who would rule us, is a negative one. It has served me well.

Ha! But even a false humility for the sake of decorum shows that you are a civilized man.

I am pretty sure you know that one of the objects of my statements is to help encourage debate.

Indeed. And it’s no pleasure running down a good man. But, goodness, he is an ambitious man. And in America, that’s generally a good thing. None of this “shrinking violet” stuff and pretending at…errr…false humility.

But he entered something he was woefully unprepared for. On the one hand, obviously this guy is a skilled surgeon, one of the best. Whatever breaks he caught on the way up the greasy pole of doctorhood, he’s not an affirmative action doctor where we all pretend he is much more than he is because he’s a minority.

But regarding his campaign for president, it’s doubtful he would have gotten anywhere if not for his skin color. And there’s nothing wrong with getting the warm-fuzzies over a real American triumph-over-adversity story. I love the life and biography of Booker Taliaferro Washington. There’s a guy anyone, of any color, could model their lives after. He’s an American, and particularly Christian, success story.

Back then, there were plenty of people looking for a way to root for the black man. In Booker T. they found one who was very worthy. He was enormously popular as a speaker and had a solidly-booked schedule all over the country. Before the poison of the Democrat’s KKK and other non-reformist policies, there was light in this nation, and Booker T. was one of those.

Did you ever hear Carson mention his name once? Maybe he did. But that should have been Carson’s role. “I’m here. I’m black. I can do this. You can do this. Quit making excuses and quit voting for people (Democrats) who do not make your life better.”

But we didn’t get that. A simple message such as that would have been righteous, inspiring, and possibly damn politically popular, especially after the fraudulence of Obama who actually intentionally stoked racial division.

Yes, perhaps I expected too much from Carson. But, good golly, he was in position to knock one out of the bark and instead walked on four pitches.

Anyone running for President is ambitious. Indeed, reportedly this was one Senate complaint about Cruz, which some might find rather amusing.

Of course, one of Washington’s associates was the great George Washington Carver. Back in the 1960s I read a bio of him in Reader’s Digest (one of their condensed books) and have admired him ever since (and read at least one other biography). If we ever find ourselves in that area of Missouri, I’d like to visit the memorial site where he was raised. (Elizabeth thinks she’s related to his owner, via her grandfather who founded the Carver School of Social Work at Southern Baptist Seminary — and given the nature of slavery, that might make her a blood relative of GWC himself.)

I realize that you are Cruz supporters, however I fail to see how Dr. Carson endorsing Donald Trump makes him an unserious candidate. Nor do I see how his choice of endorsement reveals his “true colors”. Maybe his choice to endorse Trump is the result of Ted Cruz showing his “true colors”. And to suggest that Carson’s endorsement of Trump somehow makes his candidacy unserious would suggest that Trump is also unserious. If that is your claim, you are entitled to your opinion. However, so far, the majority of Americans that have voted in the Republican primary have decided that Trump is the most qualified and serious candidate that can fix our economy, bring jobs back from overseas, and secure our borders. No other candidate (including Cruz) were vowing to do any of that until Trump changed the national conversation on both immigration and trade.

After learning that the Bushes have joined Cruz’s campaign along with hearing Cruz paint Trump supporters as “low Info” while also siding with the thugs in Black Lives Matter, I don’t buy into the pious aura which seemed to surround Cruz. Nor do I buy into the claim that he is an outsider.

I think the heart of the dichotomy is that there are a lot of people — me included — who think that Donald Trump is not of particularly high character but that Dr. Carson is. So to see Carson supporting the man who compared him to a pedophile is, at least, interesting.

Certainly if I’m Ted Cruz, I don’t really want the endorsement of the Bushes. But there would be little to gain from Cruz openly rejecting such an endorsement. They are, after all, fellow Texans.

No other candidate (including Cruz) were vowing to do any of that until Trump changed the national conversation on both immigration and trade.

Unlike Trump supporters, I don’t see Cruz as some sort of political messiah. Cruz has his weak points. One of those I comment on in a recent article.

But what I try not to do is cherry-pick things in order to support my emotional predilections. Both candidates have strengths and weaknesses. I just think that it’s useful to point out that all Donald Trump has done is have a “conversation” on some of these matters. Unlike Cruz, he hasn’t even attempted to do anything.

So what we need to weigh — giving it at least the same weight as current rhetoric — is what Donald has done in the past, what he’s said in the past, who he has supported in the past, and the gist of his overall character as a man. All these are lacking. And thus we should be careful to put too much weight into anyone’s “conversation” because at the end of the day, rhetoric is cheap.

Unlike Trump supporters, I don’t see Cruz as some sort of political messiah. Cruz has his weak points. One of those I comment on in a recent article.

But what I try not to do is cherry-pick things in order to support my emotional predilections. Both candidates have strengths and weaknesses. I just think that it’s useful to point out that all Donald Trump has done is have a “conversation” on some of these matters. Unlike Cruz, he hasn’t even attempted to do anything.

Modern democratic politics, particularly when dealing in populism, deals with projection. One sees this phenomenon at work in remarks from the more rabid Trump supporters across the web. Clearly, these people see in Trump the man who will address the particular thing which irks them.

The same can be said of the Obama phenomenon. His voters saw in him what they wanted to see. They had little to base their beliefs on, but that did not matter.

Trump has a longer personal record, but no direct political record other than his self-proclaimed buying of politicians. Who really knows what he will do?

In the end, Trump’s biggest draw is basically, “He couldn’t be worse than what we now have.”.

Is that an indictment of the present American political situation, or what?

So to see Carson supporting the man who compared him to a pedophile is, at least, interesting.

How can any man be taken seriously who takes being compared to a pedophile or a psychopath less seriously than having a CNN story being re-tweeted about his possibly leaving the campaign?

Moreover, the man who actually hinted at pedophilia and psychopathy never publicly apologized for his pronouncements, while the man whose underling did the re-tweeting did.

In his public endorsement of Trump, Carson smilingly said he and Trump had buried the hatchet. Yet when a reporter asked him about forgiving Cruz, Carson, in a less than convincing manner, said he had forgiven Cruz, it was after all his “Christian duty”. This, perhaps has less to do with his seriousness as a candidate than with his personal integrity. I ask any of you, if someone had hinted that you were a pedophile or psychopath, in front of millions, would you endorse him for dog-catcher, much less president?

As to the Neil Bush’s endorsement, it can be seen as something like Beck’s. What is Cruz going to say? “I don’t want this nut’s support?” That’s the type of thing which one only says about the KKK and David Duke.

And for those establishment “haters” who are now claiming Cruz is just a part of the establishment because some GOPers are beginning to support him, well I didn’t hear anyone but little ole me take note that one of the titans of the establishment GOPe, Mr. Ken Langone, had given his backing to Trump and that this was possibly a sign that the GOPe was already at work to co-opt Donald. Don’t forget, Donald will likely need a lot of money to finance his run against Hillary should he win the nomination. You will note he hasn’t confirmed he will self-finance that jaunt.

I am with you Brad, I am not in love with any politician and do not expect a knight in shining armor to run for the presidency. But I do wish people would actually look at the past records of those who are running for office, as opposed to swooning over their words. There is a reason we have the saying, “Talk is cheap”.

The following link is to an ABC clip which juxtaposes Trump’s statements about Carson, then and now. It is very funny.

Allahpundit has an interesting piece at Hot Air on Ben Carson saying he endorsed Trump after being assured that Trump doesn’t mean the crazy things he says. In essence, devout Christian Carson was happy to hear that Trump is lying to his voters. And the question always is — which group is Trump actually lying to? The link is:

An interesting piece which repeats what we have said here, i.e. at one time or another, Trump takes every position on any issue. And he gets away with it. Nobody has the faintest idea of what Trump will actually do in office.

The lovable rogue Trump is like the “bad boy” mamas used to warn their daughters about. Some girls had the sense to listen to mama.

Unfortunately, a large percentage of them can’t resist the chance to play with fire, are hypnotized by the flame, believing the guy’s promises. It is only later when they are burned and their hero is no where to be found, that some of them come to their senses. Sadly, by then it is too late.

A large portion of the American electorate are the equivalent of silly girls flirting with that bad boy.

I guess I just come from a different aesthetic. I’ve never found Trump in the least engaging. I never watched his reality show. In fact, I don’t watch reality shows at all. Maybe that’s why Trump is so successful. Reality shows have been all the rage. What people don’t generally know is how staged they are. It’s therefore quite possible that people’s ability to parse reality has been bent. Normal “reality” is now the kind of overtly staged reality we see on TV, in the media, etc. Distortion of reality is now so common, it is difficult to be anchored in anything more substantial, for “substance” has been downgraded to whatever is vomited out of pop culture, including Donald Trump.

We are, to a large extent, a product of our environment. It’s all the rage in conservative circles to talk about the need for critical thinking. And I’m certainly not against that. But do we know what critical thinking really means? To a large extent, it means being able and willing to at least try to evaluate a situation beyond the wall of our emotions/hopes/preconceptions.

I don’t watch reality shows either, but I do recall that Donald Westlake did a parody of them in which Dortmunder and his gang were to do a reality show of a heist. Don’t remember the title, unfortunately.

Good article, Timothy. It’s been apparent almost from the start that he’s all things to all people. He shares a lot in this regard with Obama. He’s on both sides of every issue. He sells a mystique of technical competence. But as to the details, well, there aren’t many. It’s all generalities and platitudes.

I don’t think magical thinking is the best way to choose candidates. Again, it’s nice that Trump bitch-slaps the press. But does he do so because he’s boldly beating a path — finally — for conservative principles or is he just bitch-slapping the press because that is what he would do even if running as a Democrat? Do we ignore this likelihood and instead read into him The Great Conservative Reformer?

Repeat: There is no good reason to believe that a President Trump would govern any differently than a Chris Christie…possibly he would govern even further to the Left. And his pompous, mercurial personality and approach would leave wreckage in his wake. I don’t see how it can be otherwise. Even if one has a solid plan and governing philosophy, it’s enormously difficult to implement it without it getting watered down. But if you don’t start out with a clear and firm agenda in the first place, it’s truly magic thinking to suppose that Trump’s aura of competence will somehow always see him through.

It’s the same trait the Left has. They have no sound understanding of human nature or economics. But they have their “vision,” and no matter that the evidence that their policies don’t work. They are more attached to their vision than reality.

And that I think that applies to Trump supporters. Yes, again, it’s great that he bitch-slaps the press. But is he honestly going to break the back of Big Government? His economic program could be summed up as: “Tariffs, control further the practices of American companies, and it’s China’s fault.” This is far different from Reagan’s thoughtful approach based on sound economics and a sound philosophy of government. Reagan improved the economy by getting government out of the way. Trump promises the kind of “strong hand” that allowed FDR to take a major recession and turn it into The Great Depression. FDR also had the mystique of uber-competence fueled by a public too desperate for solutions.

Trump is representative of a non-serious public who either doesn’t care that current problems aren’t dealt with or don’t think they can be. So they’re satisfied with the show.

I think we should be reminded that ambition in any form is self-centered. It is fine to be self-centered up to a certain point, but when ambition is combined with the desire to rule others, caution on the part of the great unwashed is called for.

One of the reasons I so admire Washington is that his immature ambition for glory was muted by experience. Much of his ambition fell away and was replaced by wisdom.

Experience is the great sculptor of character. This is why I prefer to have more mature presidents, not forty-somethings like the Bill Clinton, W and the Obamanation. The fact that Cruz is only forty five years old is one of my main concerns about him.

In most cases, the fact that Trump and Carson are in their sixties would a plus for me. But I have yet to see wisdom pour forth from Trump’s mouth, and any man who is so ambitious that he would support someone who basically called him a dog, is not worthy of my support. That goes far beyond forgiveness. It displays raw, naked ambition.

I have a couple of corrections here. First, while Trump certainly has received the most votes in the campaign so far, in no primary or caucus has he ever received a majority, much less gotten a majority overall. By contrast, Rubio won a majority in Puerto Rico and Cruz won one in the Wyoming caucuses last night, for what they were worth. Nor have “the Bushes” joined Cruz, though Neil Bush certainly did. Even if the others do, this may simply reflect that they no longer have a good alternative to Trump.

Unfortunately, the rest of your last paragraph is all too accurate. To be sure, he didn’t exactly side with the Obamathugs, but neither did he condemn them and their successful shutdown of the Trump rally in Chicago.

Maybe Carson forgave Trump. Maybe he forgave Cruz. I don’t think it is any of our business who he chooses to endorse. People endorse the individual whom they think is best for the job. Obviously Session and Phyllis Schlafly also believe that Trump is more qualified to get us out of this mess.

As I’ve said before, Cruz more closely represents my view on many of the most important issues than any presidential candidate since Reagan. But, as I’ve also stated, I don’t think he will be able to make the changes he (and I) want because he won’t get backing from the eGOP (and the Dems certainly aren’t going to help him). So, he would be a lame duck two minutes after he’s inaugurated.

That leaves Trump.

I’m not naive enough to think Trump will govern as a conservative. Rather, my hope is that he helps to destroy the eGOP. The Dems are a lost cause and if the eGOP continues down the path they’re on it will be only a matter of time until there is no credible check on government tyranny. I think we’re running out of time. We may not have another 4 years to get this right the next time. Once the illegals get the right to vote it is game over. The only viable chance I see for conservative ascendancy is to take control of the GOP and as unlikely as that is now, it won’t matter later after the Dems have essentially installed the Chicago political patronage system on the national level.

So, go Trump go and when you get to DC please kneecap the eGOP power brokers, rhetorically speaking of course.

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Amendment I

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Amendment II

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Amendment III

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Amendment IV

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Amendment VII

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